Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Couch: NCAA tone-deaf in eliminating two-a-days from college football practice

CHICAGO – The NCAA has put its foot down for the sake of player safety, eliminating two-a-day contact practices from college football August training camps, while mandating that players get Sundays off.

Quickly, think of a problem you don’t have. Then eliminate that problem and, in the process, find a way to make your life worse.

That’s how the NCAA tackled this issue. They meant well. And if Bear Bryant was still coaching the Junction Boys or if this were even 2007 instead of 2017, they might be doing some good.

Instead, they’ve added to the grind of fall camp and made a long season even longer.

Most college football teams — Michigan State included — will be reporting for fall camp this weekend, a week earlier than usual, so they can fit in their 29 allotted practices before their first games. So, rather than three weeks of fall camp leading up to game week, there are four. But, the NCAA argues, they’ll have Sundays off and won’t be colliding with each other more than once a day.

Here’s the thing: Nobody really does two-a-days anymore.

“We haven’t had a real two-a-day since I’ve been here, maybe one since I’ve been here,” MSU senior linebacker Chris Frey said earlier this week at Big Ten media days in Chicago.

“I think we had three or four on the calendar (last year), and I think we went with one or two,” MSU coach Mark Dantonio said. “The last three or four years, we’ve said we don’t want to get somebody hurt or ground down. We’re going every single day in some capacity. Now it’s a five-week camp (including game week), so we have to make sure we stay fresh mentally, physically, stay healthy, and that’ll be a challenge.”

Here’s the other thing: Players don’t want this. They don’t see it as improving their physical and mental health. The third week of camp is already a drag. The fourth week will feel like time standing still. They’re sick of hitting their teammates. Upperclassmen are tired of living in a dorm room. The first game can’t come soon enough.

Players did their best not to be too critical this week at media days. Minnesota running back Rodney Smith, for example, stared down at the microphone and bobbed his head, “mmmmm …”

Enough said.

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald was more outspoken.

“I don’t recall having contact in our second practice in maybe seven or eight years at our place,” he said. “So I would have loved to have had the opportunity to say, ‘Let’s keep the calendar the same. The days that you had the opportunity for two-a-days, just don’t have contact.’ Cool, great. Sounds like a great solution to me. Instead we say you can’t go out and run around twice, even though my third-grader can go have recess twice. We can’t go have recess twice and play football, which is mind-boggling to me. If we want to control contact, I get it. So I hope this is a one-year deal and then we get this thing fixed.

“These were decisions that were made outside of the normal legislative structure that we’ve had. This came down out of of nowhere. I sit on the (American Football Coaches Association) board of trustees. This blindsided us.”

“There was just something about that month really stood out,” Hainline said. “We couldn't say with statistical certainty if this was because of the two-a-days, but there was enough consensus in the room and enough preliminary data that it looked like it was because of the two-a-days.”

If only two-a-days really still existed.

Because, per usual, the NCAA isn’t on the cutting edge of anything. College football programs don’t want to do harm to their players or make them less effective during the season. The science of recovery is evolving. All of these teams at the Division-I level, MSU included, are on top of it. And now, just in time, the NCAA is letting them know about it — like a grandparent getting their first smart phone in 2017 and letting their teenage grandchild in on the joys of Instagram.

Fitzgerald, for one, isn’t going to punish his guys for the NCAA’s outdated thinking.

“We’re not coming in early,” he said. “I’m going to bring them in one day early, so I can knock out all of our compliance stuff. We used to give our guys periodic days off. Now we’re just going to practice on those days. We’re going to get in 23, 24 practices in before the opener. I don’t know what the magic number is, but I think that’s enough, I really do. Do we know where the number 29 came from? I have no idea where this magical 29 practice opportunities came from.

“These guys don’t leave (all summer). They’re in great shape when we report to camp. When I was in training camp (in the early 1990s), we’d run a conditioning test because we had to figure out whether guys did anything over the summer. Now we’re there the whole summer, workouts are mandatory.

“I’m more concerned about burnout than bringing them in a week early for an extra meeting.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.